SPEAKER_01 0:00

There we go. Hey everybody, welcome back. Really excited to be talking with Republican Congressman Greg Stooby of Florida's 17th Congressional District. Sir, thanks for joining me this morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

So lots I want to get to. I know there was actually a bill, uh, a vote in the House this morning about extending FISA. Do we know how that would be down yet?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

So they had to bring it up as a suspension because they can't pass a rule. So with a suspension bill, it's got to take two-thirds to pass, and it didn't get it didn't get two-thirds. I didn't even see if it got a majority of votes. That's you've got R's and D's on both sides of that. Um, so it's I don't know why they would bring it as a suspension knowing that it was going to fail. Um, I think the House should wait for the Senate to send us something because they've got to get something out of there. And in order to get it out of there, you got to get through a 60-vote threshold. And I think we were probably there before the Poulti announcement on DI, and now all the Democrats are saying the Democrats that support it are now saying they're not going to support it. And the moment that they've taken that position, then it's going to fail over there.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

So that's the sticking point, right? Is that Democrats basically don't want Bill Poulti put in as DNI. Uh, where do you see this going? Are are they going to get what they want in the end, you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, the frustrating part as a member of Congress in a Republican House and a Republican Senate is they allow this filibuster of a 60-vote threshold to dictate our policy. If they had a majority vote over there and we nuked the filibuster to get good conservative policy done, we wouldn't have to worry about the Democrats. We'd just have to be focused on uh Republicans. So because that's not going to change, according to Thune, um, you're gonna have to get at least seven Democrats to vote for this, and there's a handful of Republicans over there that want reforms to FISA before they vote for a FISA bill, even though this is FISA 702. So what gets what's challenging in the conversation about FISA is you have FISA Title I, which was used to spy on the Trump campaign. You have FISA Title II and you have FISA 702. FISA 702 is what needs to be reauthorized. FISA 702 is foreign collection. Like we want to hear what the cartel leader in Mexico is doing so that we can protect our country, or we want to know what the next Osama bin Laden is planning so we can protect our country. It's foreign collection, but it gets it gets lost in the FISA overall conversation because so many conservatives like myself are appalled by the fact that the Intel agency used it to spy on a political campaign and spy on President Trump. So that's a lot of the challenges with the program. Uh, but this is FISA 702. I don't know why you would be opposed to that, but they want uh reforms to FISA Title I. There were 56 reforms that we passed last Congress. There's a whole litany list of things that like they have to the the officers have to swear an oath to to the validity of a subpoena, all these different protections to prevent the atrocities that occurred previously with the spying and the Russia collusion hoax. So a lot of that has been um dealt with, and there's a lot of confusion between a query and an actual search of an American citizen. If something pops that so say uh Osama bin Laden is talking to somebody here in the United States, at what point does that necessitate a warrant to go into that person that's a citizen and to get their data? DOJ will tell you that they do a warrant and get a subpoena before they go into that individual's data. So there it's a very complicated issue, but uh from my political perspective, I don't see this resolving anytime soon. Um there's now a court case that says that they don't need Congress to reauthorize it. So I'm sure that's gonna get appealed, but I would imagine the agencies are gonna rely upon that and say, look, we have a federal court that's saying that we can continue to collect and we don't need Congress to reauthorize it. That's obviously going to be appealed by some group somewhere, and um we'll see what happens with that court case. But from a congressional standpoint, I don't see this rectifying anytime soon, especially if the Ds are gonna try to use this as leverage with the president to not appoint Poulti as DI.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

You mentioned the frustrations that House Republicans have with your Senate counterparts because of the filibuster. I think that's something expressed by a lot of people who voted to put Republicans in the majority in November 2024. I don't know if you had the chance to see, but this morning the president actually is calling for now a third reconciliation bill. He wants $350 billion for the military plus the SAVE Act. I want to talk specifically about the SAVE Act. So during the last reconciliation bill that dealt with immigration, we saw that it actually got 51 votes in the Senate. Susan Collins wound up voting for it in the end. So if it was to go through reconciliation, it could pass in the Senate. But there still seems to be pushback from at least the leadership on the Senate side about the Save Act. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

So the challenge with doing the SAVE Act through reconciliation is reconciliation requires budgetary things or things of a tax nature. And they have to go through what's called the birdbath in the Senate. And the parliamentarian, who was, oh, by the way, appointed by Harry Reid and is a Democrat, and Thune, I've called on him to get rid of her too, and hasn't gotten rid of her. Trump's asked uh Thune to get rid of her, he hasn't gotten rid of her. She's gonna say that attaching provisions on voting rights or the Save Act to anything in reconciliation is going to be stripped from the bill. So we can do it. The House can send that over, but I can guarantee you that the Harry Reid appointed parliamentarian is going to strip the Save Act because they're gonna say it's policy in nature, it's not budgetary in nature, and it's gonna come out of the reconciliation package.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

We've also seen on the House side a lot of members use discharge petitions in order to get some of their policy votes to the floor. Uh a higher level of these petitions than in the past. Do you think that expresses a frustration with House leadership? The fact that members need to go outside the normal process to get their priorities to the floor.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah, I kind of started this process with disaster relief uh a few years ago when my my district got hit by six hurricanes in two years. Uh I had passed a disaster relief bill for tax relief for people affected by a natural disaster unanimously through the Ways Committee. Uh the leader, my own leadership refused to bring it to the floor for a vote. And after several meetings with them and asking them to bring it to the floor as a suspension, they refused to do that. So I filed a discharge petition. Uh I don't I don't think every Democrat, but a number of Democrats signed it. I had probably basically the entire Florida delegation signed it. Um it would it then became ripe, and I passed the first discharge petition as a member in the majority that was signed by the president since I was like 30 years ago. So I it's certainly a tool. Now, people in leadership will say it's a tool, the minority. I don't agree with that at all because I successfully used it on something that, oh, by the way, passed like 386 to 7. So this wasn't controversial at all. Now, what you're seeing is you're seeing three or four moderate members in our conference who are in tough districts wanting to work with Democrats to pass policy. Now, the good the good caveat to that is then they don't they don't have this type of thing in the Senate. So these bills will probably never go anywhere in the Senate, but something like my bill that was widely supported, that was very important to not just Florida but 46 other states that have been hit by a natural disaster, it easily made it through the Senate. And actually, Joe Biden was president at the time and he signed it. So I believe the discharge petition process protects the individual members who are being thwarted by their leadership when their leadership is telling them, no, we're not going to hear this bill or it's not gonna come out of committee. It is a tool that is effective to be able to move that out of the House. Now, what happens once it gets to the Senate is is the Senate's problem. But if it is a widely supported issue and the leadership is preventing you from bringing it to the floor, like my disaster relief bill, it'll easily pass the Senate and and it'll it'll move to the president, the president will sign it.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Well, given the fact that disaster relief usually is bipartisan and uncontroversial, what was the reason you were given by your leadership that they wouldn't bring it to the floor?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Well, that that changed many times, but the the the most uh argument was we don't want to send a tax-titled bill to the Senate because they'll just put something on it we don't like and send it back to the House. And I said, Well, we shouldn't be governing by fear. We should be we are the House and we should send over good policy. If they want to do that, then that's up to them. But this is the House, and we need to send good policy over to the Senate. And of course that didn't end up happening. The bill passed, I think, on unanimous consent over there. Not not a single senator objected to it, and it went to the president's desk. So being fearful of what the Senate's gonna do and send it back, you don't have to retake that bill back up. If they were to add something bad on it and send it back over here, I would kill it myself. But don't thwart what the members of your conference want done to represent to effectively represent their districts uh just because you're afraid of what the Senate's gonna do. Let the process work itself out, let the members, and what's really frustrating about this is this particular bill, it passed unanimously in committee. It went through the Ways and Means Committee, passed unanimously, was ready for the floor, and I had my own leadership telling me no. So I will always protect and defend the discharge petition process. There are bills that I do not support that I have not voted, that I have not voted for that have passed by discharge, but they're never going to see the light of day in the Senate because they're controversial.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Talk to me a little bit about this H1B visa bill that I know you're uh proposing. So, first of all, for my listeners who may not know, what is an H1B visa?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

So H1B is is like skilled workforce. So you've got like H2A and H1B and these different visa programs that allow foreign workers to come into our country and work. H 1B is is supposed to be for skilled workers. What you have seen happen over the years is hundreds of thousands, the biggest country of using H1Bs is India and China. So you have all these uh folks from India and China coming into the country and getting paid to come in at a lower rate than American workers. You've seen cases in Google, Disney, a whole bunch of other big companies that will fire American workers to bring in people on an H1B because they can pay them less. Um, I just don't believe it's America First. I don't believe it supports American workers. And so I've there's been some bills to reform the process. I don't think you can reform the process. Uh you're now seeing rampant fraud. As our administration is digging into all these different federal programs, you're seeing all of the fraud that occurs with these different programs. I just think you need to shut the whole thing down. We have the skills here. If you want to bring create some type of like highly skilled workforce that we don't have here, but I don't, this is America. We have some of the best scientists in the world. We have some of the best engineers in the world. We don't need people from China and India coming in and filling American roles and American jobs at a cheaper rate and putting American workers out.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So really it comes down to the fact that the companies are able to pay them less than they would pay an American worker.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, I mean, and if you're Google, wouldn't you rather pay, you know, a hundred people from India, half of what you're paying American workers to do the same job? Of course you would. So they're making a business decision based on a government program that was created not for that, not to put American workers out, it was created to bring in skilled workforce from of a skill that we didn't have in America that we needed at the time. And I just don't believe that it's necessary anymore. Um, and then you have so many companies that are overseas and you can use you can zoom work and whatever the case may be. I just don't think that American workers should be fired because we're gonna ship in cheaper labor from India and China.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Have you been getting any traction with this bill?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, I mean, if you if you follow you know stuff happening on X and you follow what people are talking about, this is a very popular issue, uh especially with the Republican base. Uh it's very widely supported. You have other members that are filing bills very similar to this or reforming the process. Now there were that there was this court case, so Trump put a price tag on it of 100K to ensure that the people were not abusing the system and that these companies were not abusing the system because there's been abuse that has occurred. And a court just recently struck that down. So I could even see the administration at this point saying, okay, you're not gonna let me do reforms from the administrative perspective, then we're just gonna shut the whole program down.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Let's shift gears a little bit. I want to talk to you about Iran. So, as someone who voted for President Trump, who has voted for Republicans, I think I express what a lot of others are feeling right now, which is we kind of have whiplash about this. So one day if we're negotiating, we're getting really far, you know, they're coming to the table in good faith, then it's if they don't come to the table in the next two weeks, I'm gonna bomb them, then it's we're not making any progress at all. I mean, what do you make of all of this? I think some of us are just looking for some clarity on this whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

At this point, uh, so I served in Iraq, I served, I was a chief detainee operations over there, so I've dealt in in from a military perspective in the Middle East. At this point, first of all, you can't believe anything that the Iranians are gonna tell you. Um, unless they're actually going to show you that they're gonna let vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, then then you can know that they're actually gonna be true to their word if that's part of the negotiating. But you can't believe anything that they say, and what they're doing is they're delaying and delaying and delaying as much as possible to either bring in more missile defense or to build up their missile defense or to build up a nuclear weapon or whatever the case may be. They're just buying time. Um, so I I sense that the president is is getting frustrated with that, and you can't attack us and think that that's not going to be responded to. Uh, so in my opinion, at this point, I think we need to go in, we need to clear the Strait of Hormuse, we need to ensure that that has been taken care of, we need to disable their ability to get a nuclear weapon and then come home. Um, that's where I'm at on it. I think that's where the president's heading towards. Uh, I think coming to some type of agreement is going to be very difficult until they've gotten to the point where they realize they don't have any other choice.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

What are your thoughts on this clown Graham Flatner in Maine? I mean, he's a guy who served in the military like you. There's been a lot of stuff coming out about him. I'm sure there will probably be more. But particularly the hypocrisy from the Democrats. They were the ones who spearheaded the Me Too movement not ten years ago, and now they seem to be brushing this aside. So, what do you think of this?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, well, that's another great example of the mainstream media only caring about propping up their people and taking down Republicans. If this candidate was running for office as a Republican in any state, he would be constant news of all the horrible things that he has said and done. Uh he would be in a place where he wouldn't even be able to walk outside because of the protests, um, and he would be forced to either not run for office or resign or whatever the case may be. But because it's a Democrat and they're smelling blood in the water because they think that they can beat Susan Collins in the current environment, they're gonna take anybody that they can and try to prop him up, regardless of how bad his resume is and how many horrible things that he said. Um, it it's it's really fascinating, and it highlights, just like you said, the hypocrisy of the left, that they don't really care about any of these movements. They just care about propping up Democrats and then pushing down Republicans.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

How are you feeling about the midterms? I mean, they redistricted in Florida, it just got held up last night, so they can use the new map going forward. But, you know, nationwide, obviously, trends usually go against the incumbent administration. But how are you feeling about everything?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Well, with redistricting across the country, I think we're gonna net Republicans will net like 11 seats, uh, which will obviously help us in that midterm where you typically lose seats. Um, it's still gonna be a tough, tough race. I do think we need to get, you know, and I think the president's very keen on this. He wants to get gas prices down, he wants to get out of Iran uh as we get closer to the election. The economy is gonna be doing better because as more of the big beautiful bill and these tax cuts start coming out, like my district is the most elderly district in the country. I have the most Social Security benefit beneficiaries in the entire nation. And that $6,000 per person credit for them was huge. I mean, a lot of these people are on fixed income, and that that is a huge boost to them economically. And they remember that it was because of Republicans that they got that tax credit. So uh I think as we get closer to the midterms, I think the outlook will be better. I think the redistricting nationwide has helped us net seats overall. Um I think we'll I think we'll win most of these new districts in Florida, which will be if you look over the last, I guess it's five years, we will have picked up eight seats in Florida. Um, because we flipped four in the last redistricting, and we could flip four more in this redistricting. So that'd be a swing of eight uh in Florida, and and that just shows you that um Florida's the free state of Florida. We got a lot of Republicans that are moving there. If you look at the demographic information, just in Sarasota County, I represent Sarasota County. You can look at monthly new voter registration, it's like two-thirds Republican to one-third Democrat. So the people that are moving into Florida are Republicans and conservatives that are fleeing Democrat-run cities and states.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

My last question for you, sir, because you mentioned you have a lot of recipients on Social Security in your district. Yesterday it came out from I think the Social Security Office that by 2032 the program will be insolvent and people will experience probably around a 20% cut. So, as someone who represents a lot of seniors, you're going to be feeling the pressure to do something about this. Uh what are your plans to address the issue?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah, and that's that's a highly toxic political issue. I've been talking about it for years. I've been talking about the debt for years. We're almost $40 trillion in debt, and Washington continues to have a spending problem, and we're not cutting spending. Uh, I think Congress will get to a point where you have to make a decision on that, but it'd be very hard politically for Congress to cut benefits. I think there are things that you can do to be strategic that will help buffer the program. Like if you haven't even been born yet, we raise the age from 65 to 70 or from 65 to 75. If you look at the trajectory over a 10-year, 20, or 30-year period of time, uh that has a huge amount of um decrease overall in the program. So there's little things that we can do that will not affect anybody that's currently on the program that would save trillions of dollars in the life of the program. And I think those are the type of things that we're gonna have to at some point really look at. But politically, nobody wants to touch it, Republicans or Democrats. Democrats would never touch it. Um, but even Republicans that talk about doing simple reforms like what I just talked about will then be attacked back home for cutting Social Security. So it's gonna get to a point where we have to do something about it and we don't have a choice. And uh I think it's then that you're gonna make those tough decisions, but you can do it in a way that doesn't affect anybody currently on a program. Frankly, it doesn't affect anybody that's gonna get on the program, say, in the next 10 to 20 years. You could do it on an age gap, you know, people that are 15 and under, or 20 or under, or however you want to do it, that would really help buffer up the program.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

All right, Congressman. Well, we're out of time, but I appreciate you coming on. I really enjoyed the conversation, and I would love to have you back in the future.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

All right, thank you.